Nihilism

For other uses, see Nihilism (disambiguation).

Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical position that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not exist, and subsequently there are no moral values with which to uphold a rule or to logically prefer one action over another. Nihilism can also take the form of epistemological, metaphysical or mereological nihilism.

The term nihilism is sometimes used synonymously with anomie to denote the general mood of despair at the pointlessness of existence that one has when they realize there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws. Movements such as Futurism and deconstructionism, among others, have been identified by commentators as "nihilistic" at various times in various contexts. Often this means or is meant to imply that the beliefs of the accuser are more substantial or truthful, whereas the beliefs of the accused are nihilistic, and thereby comparatively amount to nothing (or are simply claimed to be destructively amoralistic).

Nihilism is also a characteristic that has been ascribed to time periods: for example, Jean Baudrillard and others have called postmodernity a nihilistic epoch, and some Christian theologians and figures of religious authority have asserted that postmodernity and many aspects of modernity represent a rejection of theism, and that such a rejection entails some form of nihilism.

History

Though the term nihilism was first popularized by the novelist Ivan Turgenev, it was first introduced into philosophical discourse by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), who used the term to characterize rationalism, and in particular Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy in order to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilism, and thus it should be avoided and replaced with a return to some type of faith and revelation. Bret W. Davis writes, for example, "The first philosophical development of the idea of nihilism is generally ascribed to Friedrich Jacobi, who in a famous letter criticized Fichte’s idealism as falling into nihilism. According to Jacobi, Fichte’s absolutization of the ego (the 'absolute I' that posits the 'not-I') is an inflation of subjectivity that denies the absolute transcendence of God." A related concept is fideism.

Søren Kierkegaard posited an early form of nihilism which he referred to as levelling. Levelling was the process of suppressing individuality to a point where the individual's uniqueness becomes non-existent and nothing meaningful in his existence can be affirmed:

Levelling at its maximum is like the stillness of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat, a stillness like death, into which nothing can penetrate, in which everything sinks, powerless. One person can head a rebellion, but one person cannot head this levelling process, for that would make him a leader and he would avoid being levelled. Each individual can in his little circle participate in this levelling, but it is an abstract process, and levelling is abstraction conquering individuality.

— Søren Kierkegaard, The Present Age, translated by Alexander Dru with Foreword by Walter Kaufmann, p. 51-53'

Kierkegaard, an advocate of a philosophy of life, generally argued against levelling and its nihilist consequence, although he believed it would be "genuinely educative to live in the age of levelling [because] people will be forced to face the judgement of [levelling] alone". George Cotkin asserts Kierkegaard was against "the standardization and levelling of belief, both spiritual and political, in the nineteenth century [and he] opposed tendencies in mass culture to reduce the individual to a cipher of conformity and deference to the dominant opinion". In his day, tabloids (like the Danish Corsaren) and corrupt Christianity were instruments of levelling and contributed to the "reflective apathetic age" of 19th century Europe. Kierkegaard argues that individuals who are able to overcome the levelling process are stronger for it and is a step in the right direction towards "becoming a true self". As we must overcome levelling, Hubert Dreyfus and Jane Rubin argue that Kierkegaard's interest, "in an increasingly nihilistic age, is in how we can recover the sense that our lives are meaningful".

It should be noted, however, that Kierkegaard's meaning of nihilism differs from the modern definition in the sense that, for Kierkegaard, levelling led to a life lacking meaning, purpose or value, whereas the modern definition posits that there was never any meaning, purpose or value to begin with.

Nietzsche

Main article: Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Nihilism is often associated with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose perspectivist view ("in so far as the word 'knowledge' has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings" The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann) accorded with certain aspects of one reading of the position; the modern definition does not apply to him. Nietzsche noted the "death of God" and the atrophy of traditional absolutist morality in his time. However, he never advocated nihilism as a practical mode of living and was typically quite critical of what he described as the more dangerous nihilism, the rejection of the material world in favor of a nonexistent "heaven". His later work displays a preoccupation with nihilism.

Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. He hints that nihilism can become a false belief, when it leads individuals to discard any hope of meaning in the world and thus to invent some compensatory alternate measure of significance. Nietzsche used the phrase 'Christians and other nihilists', which is consistent with Christianity in general as Nietzsche describes nihilism, though as nihilism is now commonly construed, Christian philosophy is its opposite. Another prominent philosopher who has written on the subject is Martin Heidegger, who argued that "[the term] nihilism has a very specific meaning. What remains unquestioned and forgotten in metaphysics is being; and hence, it is nihilistic."

In most contexts, Nietzsche defined the term as any philosophy that results in an apathy toward life and a poisoning of the human soul—and opposed it vehemently. Nietzsche's deep concern with nihilism was part of his intense reaction to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the denial of the will. Nietzsche describes it as "the will to nothingness" or, more specifically:

A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought NOT to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos — at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 585, translated by Walter Kaufmann'

Stanley Rosen identifies Nietzsche's equation of nihilism with "the situation which obtains when 'everything is permitted.'" Nietzsche asserts that this nihilism is a result of valuing "higher", "divine" or "meta-physical" things (such as God), that do not in turn value "base", "human" or "earthly" things. But a person who rejects God and the divine may still retain the belief that all "base", "earthly", or "human" ideas are still valueless because they were considered so in the previous belief system (such as a Christian who becomes a communist and believes fully in the party structure and leader). In this interpretation, any form of idealism, after being rejected by the idealist, leads to nihilism. Moreover, this is the source of "inconsistency on the part of the nihilists". The nihilist continues to believe that only "higher" values and truths are worthy of being called such, but rejects the idea that they exist. Because of this rejection, all ideas described as true or valuable are rejected by the nihilist as impossible because they do not meet the previously established standards.

In this sense, it is the philosophical equivalent to the Russian political movement: the leap beyond scepticism — the desire to destroy meaning, knowledge, and value. To Nietzsche, it was irrational because the human soul thrives on value. Nihilism, then, was in a sense like suicide and mass murder all at once. He considered faith in the categories of reason, seeking either to overcome or ignore nature, to be the cause of such nihilism. "We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world". He saw this philosophy as present in Christianity (which he described as 'slave morality'), Buddhism, morality, asceticism and any excessively skeptical philosophy.

As the first philosopher to study nihilism extensively, however, Nietzsche was also quite influenced by its ideas. Nietzsche's complex relationship with nihilism can be seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!". While this may appear to imply his allegiance to the nihilist viewpoint, it would be more accurate to say that Nietzsche saw the coming of nihilism as valuable in the long term (as well as ironically acknowledging that nihilism exists in the world so has more gravity compared with categories that refer to a purely fictitious world). According to Nietzsche, it is only once nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure.

Nietzsche's philosophy also shares with nihilism a rejection of any perfect source of absolute, universal and transcendent values. Still, he did not consider all values of equal worth. Recognizing the chaos of nihilism, he advocated a philosophy that willfully transcends it. Furthermore, his positive attitude towards truth as a vehicle of faith and belief distinguishes him from the extreme pessimism that nihilism is often associated with.

'To the clean are all things clean' — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): 'The world itself is a filthy monster.' For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen! TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true! There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

A major cause of Nietzsche's continued association with nihilism is his famous proclamation that "God is dead." This is Nietzsche's way of saying that the idea of God is no longer capable of acting as a source of any moral code or teleology. God is dead, then, in the sense that his existence is now irrelevant to the bulk of humanity. "And we," writes Nietzsche in The Gay Science, "have killed him." Alternately, some have interpreted Nietzsche's comment to be a statement of faith that the world has no rational order. Nietzsche also believed that, even though he thought Christian morality was nihilistic, without God humanity is left with no epistemological or moral base from which we can derive absolute beliefs. Thus, even though nihilism has been a threat in the past, through Christianity, Platonism, and various political movements that aim toward a distant utopian future, and any other philosophy that devalues human life and the world around us (and any philosophy that devalues the world around us by privileging some other or future world necessarily devalues human life), Nietzsche tells us it is also a threat for humanity's future. This warning can also be taken as a polemic against 19th and 20th century scientism.

He advocated a remedy for nihilism's destructive effects and a hope for humanity's future in the form of the Übermensch (English: overman or superman), a position especially apparent in his works Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist. The Übermensch is an exercise of action and life: one must give value to their existence by behaving as if one's very existence were a work of art. Nietzsche believed that the Übermensch "exercise" would be a necessity for human survival in the post-religious era. Another part of Nietzsche's remedy for nihilism is a revaluation of morals — he hoped that we are able to discard the old morality of equality and servitude and adopt a new code, turning Judeo-Christian morality on its head. Excess, carelessness, callousness, and sin, then, are not the damning acts of a person with no regard for their salvation, nor that which plummets a society toward decadence and decline, but the signifier of a soul already withering and the sign that a society is in decline. The only true sin to Nietzsche is that which is — against a human nature — aimed at the expression and venting of one's power over oneself. Virtue, likewise, is not to act according to what has been commanded, but to contribute to all that betters a human soul.

He attempts to reintroduce what he calls a master morality, which values personal excellence over forced compassion and creative acts of will over the herd instinct, a moral outlook he attributes to the ancient Greeks. The Christian moral ideals developed in opposition to this master morality, he says, as the reversal of the value system of the elite social class due to the oppressed class' resentment of their Roman masters. Nietzsche, however, did not believe that humans should adopt master morality as the be-all-end-all code of behavior - he believed that the revaluation of morals would correct the inconsistencies in both master and slave morality - but simply that master morality was preferable to slave morality, although this is debatable. Walter Kaufmann, for one, disagrees that Nietzsche actually preferred master morality to slave morality. He certainly gives slave morality a much harder time, but this is partly because he believes that slave morality is modern society's more imminent danger. The Antichrist had been meant as the first book in a four-book series, "Toward a Re-Evaluation of All Morals", which might have made his views more explicit, but Nietzsche was afflicted by mental collapse that rendered him unable to write the latter three books.

Postmodernism

Postmodern and poststructuralist thought deny the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning, a 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and the ideals of humanism and the Enlightenment. Jacques Derrida, whose deconstruction is perhaps most commonly labeled nihilistic, did not himself make the nihilistic move that others have claimed. Derridean deconstructionists argue that this approach rather frees texts, individuals or organizations from a restrictive truth, and that deconstruction opens up the possibility of other ways of being. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, for example, uses deconstruction to create an ethics of opening up Western scholarship to the voice of the subaltern and to philosophies outside of the canon of western texts. Derrida himself built a philosophy based upon a 'responsibility to the other' Deconstruction can thus be seen not as a denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth (it makes an epistemological claim compared to nihilism's ontological claim).

Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on an objective truth or method to prove their claims, philosophers legitimize their truths by reference to a story about the world which is inseparable from the age and system the stories belong to, referred to by Lyotard as meta-narratives. He then goes on to define the postmodern condition as one characterized by a rejection both of these meta-narratives and of the process of legitimation by meta-narratives. "In lieu of meta-narratives we have created new language-games in order to legitimize our claims which rely on changing relationships and mutable truths, none of which is privileged over the other to speak to ultimate truth." This concept of the instability of truth and meaning leads in the direction of nihilism, though Lyotard stops short of embracing the latter.

Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote briefly of nihilism from the postmodern viewpoint in Simulacra and Simulation. He stuck mainly to topics of interpretations of the real world over the simulations of which the real world is composed. The uses of meaning was an important subject in Baudrillard's discussion of nihilism:

The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference…all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency.

— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, "On Nihilism", trans. 1995

Forms of nihilism

Nihilism has many definitions and is thus used to describe arguably independent philosophical positions.

Moral nihilism

Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the meta-ethical view that morality does not exist; therefore no action is preferable to any other. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong.

Existential nihilism

Existential nihilism is the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. It can stem from scientific analysis that shows only the physical laws contributed to our existence. With respect to the universe, a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and can make no real change in the totality of existence.

Epistemological nihilism

Nihilism of an epistemological form can be seen as an extreme form of skepticism in which all knowledge is denied.

Metaphysical nihilism

Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there might have been no objects at all, i.e. that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all; or at least that there might have been no concrete objects at all, so even if every possible world contains some objects, there is at least one that contains only abstract objects.

An extreme form of metaphysical nihilism is commonly defined as the belief that existence itself does not exist. One way of interpreting such a statement would be: It is impossible to distinguish 'existence' from 'non-existence' as there are no objective qualities, and thus a reality, that one state could possess in order to discern between the two. If one cannot discern existence from its negation, then the concept of existence has no meaning; or in other words, does not 'exist' in any meaningful way. 'Meaning' in this sense is used to argue that as existence has no higher state of reality, which is arguably its necessary and defining quality, existence itself means nothing. It could be argued that this belief, once combined with epistemological nihilism, leaves one with an all-encompassing nihilism in which nothing can be said to be real or true as such values do not exist. A similar position can be found in solipsism; however, in this viewpoint the solipsist affirms whereas the nihilist would deny the self. Both these positions are forms of anti-realism.

Mereological nihilism

Mereological nihilism (also called compositional nihilism) is the position that objects with proper parts do not exist (not only objects in space, but also objects existing in time do not have any temporal parts), and only basic building blocks without parts exist, and thus the world we see and experience full of objects with parts is a product of human misperception (i.e., if we could see clearly, we would not perceive compositive objects).

Cultural manifestations

In art

In art, there have been movements criticized for being nihilistic. Indeed, there are certain movements, like Dada and Situationism, in which certain nihilistic tendencies may be found. Literature and music, at times, deal with nihilism.

The Situationist International (1957-1972) could be considered an example of a political, social, and artistic movement rooted in nihilistic views and ideas. The Situationists attempted to abolish the earlier concepts established by Dadaism and Surrealism in deconstructing the notion of "art" as a separate form, subject or entity.

Modern art is sometimes said to be nihilistic in its lack of any deeper meaning than aesthetics. The Nazi party's Degenerate art exhibit is a specific instance in history in which modern art has been strongly publicly criticized.

Dada

Main article: Dada

The term Dada was first used by Tristan Tzara in 1916. The movement, which lasted from approximately 1916 to 1922, arose during World War I, an event that influenced the artist. The Dada Movement began in Zürich, Switzerland -known as the "Niederdorf" or "Niederdörfli"- in the Café Voltaire. The Dadaists claimed that Dada was not an art movement, but an anti-art movement, sometimes using found objects in a manner similar to found poetry. The "anti-art" drive is thought to have stemmed from a post-war emptiness. This tendency toward devaluation of art has led many to claim that Dada was an essentially nihilistic movement. Given that Dada created its own means for interpreting its products, it is difficult to classify alongside most other contemporary art expressions. Hence, due to its ambiguity, it is sometimes classified as a nihilistic modus vivendi.

In music

A 2007 article in The Guardian noted that "...in the summer of 1977, ...punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England." The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen", with its chant-like refrain of "no future", became a slogan for unemployed and disaffected youth during the late 1970s.

References

• Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Kierkegaard, Søren. (1854). The Moment.
• Kierkegaard, Søren. (1846). Two Ages: A Literary Review.
• Kierkegaard, Søren. (1850). Works of Love.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1886). Beyond Good and Evil. Project Gutenberg eText.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Project Gutenberg eText.
• Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age, Hubert Dreyfus, 2004.
• Nietzsche: Nihilism (Volume IV), Martin Heidegger, Harper & Row, San Francisco, CA, 1982.
• Nihilism, The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose, Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation, Forestville, CA, 1994,1995.
• Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, Karl Löwith, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 1995.
• Nihilism Before Nietzsche, Michael Allen Gillespie, University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1996.
• Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay, Stanley Rosen, St. Augustine's Press (2nd Edition), South Bend, Indiana, 2000.
• Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld, Thomas S. Hibbs, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, TX, 2000.
• Genealogy of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing & the Difference of Theology, Conor Cunningham, Routledge, New York, NY, 2002.
• Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism, John Marmysz, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 2003.
• I Wish I Could Believe in Meaning: A Response to Nihilism, Peter S. Williams.
• Nihilism and the Sublime Postmodern: The (Hi)Story of a Difficult Relationship, Will Slocombe, Routledge, New York, NY, 2006.

See also

• Anti-art
• Absurdism
• Cosmicism
• Dysteleology
• Epistemological nihilism
• Existentialism
• Metaphysical nihilism
• Moral nihilism
• Nihilist movement
• Therapeutic nihilism
• Radical skepticism

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Nihilism
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nihilism
• "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev
• "Nihilism" by Vijay Prozak
• Introduction to nihilism - Nihilism: The CounterOrder, by Freydis

Articles

• "Nihilism, Modernism, and Value" by John Fraser
• "Modernity and Nihilism"—A religious ethicist's argument that secular history and modernity represent Nihilism
• "Nihilism and the Postmodern in Vattimo's Nietzsche", Ashley Woodward